April 14, 2023 – MLS NEXT Pro (MLS NEXT Pro) – Toronto FC II News Release
Toronto FC II open the home portion of the 2023 MLS NEXT Pro season on Friday night against NYCFC II at York Lions Stadium.
Kickoff is set for 7 pm and the gates will be open for fans to attend. Tickets are $10 at the door, children under ten enter for free.
The Young Reds began the season with a pair of road defeats at the end of March – 4-2 away to FC Cincinnati 2 and 2-0 at Chicago Fire II.
“Difficult, obviously,” levelled TFC II Head Coach Gianni Cimini on Wednesday. “In terms of the style that we wanted to play, it wasn’t the best.”
“In Cincinnati, being up 2-1, having some good moments after that and then conceding early in the second half and not being able to hold the lead. The Chicago match, really struggled with build-ups,” he continued. “And then what should be real advantages for us in the final third, ends up being advantages for them in transition. Second half being a man up, not being able to really create enough quality actions in the final third and conceding off of set-pieces.”
“It’s a new group, it’s a young group. Some guys had never played together before on the field,” Cimini levelled. “So to have expectations really high is not reasonable, but to perform at that level was unacceptable as well. For us it’s about defining moments early on in the year and how we can build character from this, how we can really look at ourselves in the mirror and improve.”
After a long preseason, the road trip was a good bonding experience, but goalkeeper Luka Gavran, one of eight returning players, wanted more from the matches.
“It was nice to get to know more of the younger players – our squad is younger now, but we didn’t take our opportunities,” he said on Thursday. “First game, we’re up 2-1, defensively we weren’t good enough and we conceded three times in the second half, that’s never going to work out.”
“Second game, first half we didn’t play that well, but we kept in it, kept the score 0-0 and Chicago got a red card,” Gavran continued. “Not to capitalize in the second half doesn’t help us, but we’re a new group. When you lose a lot of players from last year, a new group is tough, but we had a nice two weeks now to get use to each other so hopefully we can change that at home this week.”
The group that hit the road was indeed young, very young with several TFC Academy call-ups making their MLS NEXT Pro debuts and several players expected to be key contributors this season…
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